Minimising drug errors in critically ill patients
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* Corresponding author: Andrew Carson-Stevens carson-stevens@doctors.net.uk
1 Department of Primary Care and Public Health, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, CF14 4YS, UK
2 Adult Critical Care, University Hospital of Wales, CF14 4XW, UK
Critical Care 2010, 15:401 doi:10.1186/cc9366
See related research article by Klopotowska et al., http://ccforum.com/content/14/5/R174
Published: 11 January 2011First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
Klopotowska and colleagues underscore the value of the hospital pharmacists' expertise in reducing medication errors and improving patient safety in critical care [1]. The authors emphasise that drug inaccuracies are frequent and that the limited physiological reserve of critically ill individuals increases the potential harm of adverse prescribing. Critically ill patients represent a unique population with altered pharmacokinetics, and it is likely that the rate of suboptimal prescribing may be even greater than suggested by the current study [2,3]. Notably, Klopotowska and colleagues identified that most errors were focused on drug monitoring and suboptimal and incorrect dosing; typically involving antibiotics, drugs used less frequently in critical care and drugs with rapid-change profiles such as anti-thrombotics.